somebody pinch me

January 23, 14:25

If this ever lands him in court, Kouya would decide to put credit where credit is due and lay all blame on Enjouji-kun.

"The other day," Enjouji says, his head resting on one of his hands, "Something got into Chiguma's eye, and Kai and I had to help him get it out."

"I...don't really see how this is interesting, Enjouji-kun," Kouya admits, tapping the end of his pen against his little notebook. "Yeah, I'd asked you about what you guys did during club hours, but...I was hoping for something more, like, you guys finding gold in the school grounds, or ancient swords, or, or hell, even skeletons wearing samurai armor!"

(There's a slight chill that passes through Mike's spine when Ashihara says the word 'skeleton', but thankfully for him, Ashihara's eagle eyes don't catch that. If he did that'd probably get on one of his broadcasts, and Kai, the idiot, would never let him get over it. It would be so annoying.)

"Trust me, Ashihara-kun, if we'd found any of those you'd be the first to know," Enjouji says, smiling that soft smile that apparently turns the soccer club's cute manager's knees into unset jelly. "Especially knowing how...ardently you take your job. But we didn't see any of those things that day, no. What we did see, though...was what both of Chiguma's eyes looked like."

"!!! What - seriously -" Kouya's eyes just light up, and he finds himself thinking Seijun would have loved to see that, wouldn't he before he grips his pen harder and takes down notes in earnest. (What, it was a slow news day, okay!?) "What did he look like?"

"Like a friggin' dork," Enjouji says, his airy voice suddenly dipping into a deeper register Kouya hasn't heard from him often. There's something about the curl of Enjouji's smile - smirk, that's a smirk he's doing right now, huh? - that reminds Kouya of scary things but it's not exactly addressed to Kouya himself so he thinks it's nothing, just one of Enjouji's many quirks. His classmate had always been a mysterious one. "He was squinting the entire time - apparently his other eye wasn't used to not seeing through his hair, as ridiculous as that sounds."

"I wonder if Mitsuki-senpai's right eye isn't used to light, either..." Kouya trails off, words rushing through his brain as he tries to piece together a coherent story with this new information. Maybe he should ask Seijun for help. Yes, Seijun. He'd come to Kouya's assistance for this, if only because he really adores Marume-senpai and wants to know more about him.

(Damn, though, why does thinking about how Seijun presents himself, unashamedly, as Marume-senpai's #1 fan make Kouya's chest hurt? Maybe Kouya should stop working for a bit and eat something.)

"And sometimes I wonder where the hell Yuyama's ears are, but you can't have everything." Enjouji quips, yawning, shifting to rest his head on his arms like Kouya often sees Enjouji's friend - Akizuki, the first year Enjouji did the duet with - doing. "Anyway, yeah, that was pretty much the most interesting thing we had all week."

"Thanks!" Kouya pipes up, cheerily, before realizing what Enjouji just said. "By Yuyama - you mean Seijun -?"

Enjouji raises an eyebrow at him. "Second-year, taller than you, funny haircut? Who else could I be referring to?"

"You're not one to be lecturing Seijun on having a funny haircut, Enjouji-kun." Kouya says, not too unkindly, looking at the lone streak of grey in Enjouji's otherwise-fire-engine-red hair. It was a mystery he'd tried unraveling sometime in first year, only then Enjouji oh-so-kindly put him aside and said that if he ever saw Kouya rifling through his locker (read: Mendaco's March stash) ever again, well, he was dead meat.

(Come to think of it, Kouya really should've seen the S-mode tendencies coming by then.)

"Well, at least I've got ears to speak of," Enjouji says, the corners of his lips quirking as he points it out. "Have you seriously never seen Yuyama's ears before, either? Even when you're spending so much time together?"

And that, really, that was what drove Kouya to do exactly what he did, as crazy as it sounds. It's what drives Kouya to muster up a straw and the rest of his courage, and -

"Kouya."

"Mm?"

"Please, for the love of god, stop blowing at my hair." Seijun says, his cool voice unruffled save for when it had drawled out Kouya's name. "Eugh, you're even getting spit in it, the hell are you even up to."

"You wouldn't understand, Seijun." Kouya croons, edging closer into Seijun's personal space than anyone else would dare to. "It's for an experiment."

"An experiment." Seijun parrots, dumbly, all the while trying to get Kouya off his person in as little movements as possible. "You expect me to believe that? Aren't you just trying to get on my nerves as usual?"

"Aw, don't be like that, Seijun," Kouya says, both his arms around his friend's neck this time, a normal squeezing hug if not for how one of his hands inch closer and closer to where he knows human ears - Seijun's ears - are supposed to be. "You know you love me!"

Seijun stops Kouya's hand from hovering near the top of his neck with his fingers wrapped around Kouya's wrist, and looks at him, just looks at him, with those piercing eyes peering straight down into Kouya's soul. Kouya goes frozen, swallows, and watches rather than feels his own grip on his friend's shoulders go slack.

"Yeah, and who knows why I even bother," is what he says, before turning back to give his records their proper attention.

Kouya feels...like he's just lost, for some reason.